{"id":84194,"date":"2025-09-25T05:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T05:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/84194\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T05:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T05:20:13","slug":"kate-oconnor-receives-heros-welcome-at-dundalk-homecoming-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/84194\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate O\u2019Connor receives hero\u2019s welcome at Dundalk homecoming \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s World Athletics Championships<\/a> silver medallist Kate O\u2019Connor<\/a> received a hero\u2019s welcome in her hometown of Dundalk<\/a> on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

The World Heptathlon silver medallist strode into the hall of her old school, St Vincent\u2019s Secondary, to the triumphant sound of a brass band.<\/p>\n

The large cheering crowd included throngs of children from her athletics club, Dundalk St Gerard\u2019s, and pupils from the school.<\/p>\n

Fintan Reilly, deputy president of Athletics Ireland, Paul Cheshire, chairman of St Gerard\u2019s AC, along with Ms O\u2019Connor\u2019s father and coach, Michael, joined her on stage, with St Gerard\u2019s PRO Paul Martin acting as emcee.<\/p>\n

\"O'ConnorO’Connor signs autographs for fans at the homecoming. Photograph: Dan Clohessy\/Inpho \"O'ConnorO’Connor addresses the gathered wellwishers. Photograph: Dan Clohessy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Connor\u2019s mother, Valerie and her grandmother, Madeleine were also in the crowd. <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Connor told the wellwishers while she was in Japan she knew there were lots of people excited with what she had achieved, but it was only in coming to events such as this she realised there were \u201cso many people interested in what I\u2019ve done\u201d. <\/p>\n

Alluding to the hectic nature of the heptathlon, she said: \u201cFor me it was like one event after another. On the Friday night [day one of the heptathlon] I was going to bed at 1am and then had to be up at 6am on the Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Silver lining for Kate O\u2019Connor and relieved studio pundits despite injury alertOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The heptathlon consists of seven disciplines across a two-day period, including 100m hurdles, 200m race, 800m race, high jump, long jump and shot-put. <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Connor, in winning the coveted World Championship silver medal, also set a new Irish record of 6,714 points. <\/p>\n

Mr Martin told Ms O\u2019Connor the whole club, town and country were \u201cenormously proud\u201d of her phenomenal achievement and also expressed his appreciation to her for \u201chow big a role model\u201d she was for all the young people.<\/p>\n

\"O'ConnorO’Connor poses for pictures with fans in Dundalk on Wednesday night. Photograph: Dan Clohessy\/Inpho \"O'ConnorO’Connor with members of Dundalk St Gerards Athletic Club. Photograph: Dan Clohessy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Connor admitted that she felt \u201ca little bit more pressure\u201d in these World Championships and she had to hold her nerve. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was offered one medal this year, I would have jumped on it, but to win four medals at international events ..,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Connor also reflected on the exalted group of Irish woman World athletics medallists that she has joined, namely Sonia O\u2019Sullivan and Derval O\u2019Rourke: \u201cTo get messages from these people, these were my idols growing up, but now to be in the same sentence as them …\u201d <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Connor said that the biggest advice she had for the young children in attendance was \u201cif you have a dream, keep dreaming\u201d and that \u201cyou never achieve anything without working very hard\u201d.<\/p>\n

One young girl present to welcome her idol home was Niamh Ryan (9) from Carlingford. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of her. I\u2019ve met her at Glenmore Athletics track at Bush Post-primary school,\u201d said Niamh. <\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Connor\u2019s father Michael said she is getting an MRI on her right knee on Thursday as a result of strain she picked up during the heptathlon\u2019s long jump section and they will then put a plan in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was meant to stay in Japan for a couple of weeks,\u201d he said, but it was decided that the best thing to do was to come home to get the knee assessed.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Connor also emphasised the importance of investing in resources including in coaches and that there are \u201csome world class coaches\u201d in Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been so lucky in coaching, I\u2019ve been surrounded by world class coaches. It\u2019s very easy to access information from other people, the hardest thing is to pick up the phone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s World Athletics Championships silver medallist Kate O\u2019Connor received a hero\u2019s welcome in her hometown of Dundalk on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[23663,18,19,17,386,10889,23664,132,9715],"class_list":{"0":"post-84194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-dundalk","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-kate-o-connor","14":"tag-louth","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-world-athletics-championships"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}